Who's electable, who's not

The issue of electability is yakked about in media, but here’s a bigger picture you might consider.

It’s been said that people often elect a Prez as the guy they are comfortable with, the person you’d like to have over for dinner.  For this reason, Gallup began doing like/dislike polling of candidates.  Once you get into a primary season, those numbers don’t change much and have a lot to do with electability.  For instance, all the R’s who ran for President and lost in the last 40 years had unfavorabilities in the 45-50% range.  What we want is someone in the 30s.  You always have the 30% core Democrats who don’t like any R, so don’t look for numbers less than that.

Rubio is 36% unfavorable; Cruz, 39%; Bush, 46%. Cruz and Rubio are most liked. Bush is problematic.

Donald Trump has 60% dislike—highest in Gallup history.  His dislike among Republicans alone is 46%. He’s going to be almost impossible to elect, despite all the pundits arguing that he is centrist or how he reaches out to Reagan Democrats. But don’t feel too sad.  Hillary is at 52%.

So what about the argument between camps about reaching out to independents vs. getting more core voters?  Both are correct in a sense. In 2012, Obama got 4 million fewer votes than 2008, but Romney got only slightly more votes than McCain and still lost.  Problem was that 3 million fewer R’s showed up to vote.  Romney got 60% of Indies.  So didn’t his Independent support make up for the lost R-base?  No, the answer is that Indies vote half as often as partisans.  If 20% of the electorate is I, they only account for 10% on election day.  60% of 10% is just six points, vs. 40% of 10% is 4 points.  Romney’s was just a two point gained difference from I-vote vs. the 5 points lost from the base. 

But then look at Obama’s statistics.  He got 97% of Af-Amer. who had been ordinarily voting 85% Democrat.  They are 11% of population but comprised 14% of the 2012 vote—they turned out!  He got 73% of Hispanics vs. the ordinarily 60% D.  The next Democrat, unless they can really fire up their base, will probably lose 3 points of Af-Amer. support and another point of Hispanics. If Republicans can just get fired up about a candidate, they will win. Oh, and have you noticed no one ever talks gender gap?  R’s are less than 5 points behind with women.  Dems seem to have lost most married women these days.

So let’s look at the issue of reaching out.  Independents come in 5 almost equal-sized varieties. 24% are deliberaters that the media pretends comprise all I’s.  Others are hidden partisans (always vote D or R, but registered I to fool their dad or husband or friends), weird issue folks (as long as you support cock fighting, I’ll vote for you), anarchists (I hate all politicians!  Vote ‘em all out!), and misfits (socially liberal and fiscally conservative or vice versa). You can see how they vote half as often. You can see how hard it is to swing many votes at a time from this diverse group.

But R’s need to reach out to minorities.  Asians are voting increasingly Dem.  Key is to stress how America can get things done together.  Rubio does this well.  Hispanics must have an impassioned candidate who sympathizes with their situations.  Cruz does this best with personal stories and passionate Latin style.  Rubio does well.  Note, the issue of immigration reform divides Hispanics almost down the middle.  The key to winning Hispanics is not immigration reform but family values, help from society, and jobs.  Af-Ams realize that their problems are single mother homes and gangs, the education gap of the poor, and low work rates of poor males.  But they associate the Handout D’s as their saviors.  65% say D’s favor the middle class and poor, while 15% say R’s do.  A Republican outreach needs to be, look, we favor school choice for bad urban schools, tax & regulation cuts to favor hiring, and faith partnerships with government to heal family situations.  Dems favor alternate lifestyles and redefining marriage, abortion and the nanny state—all of which perpetuate poverty.  Dems have taken you for granted!  Or as Ben Carson says it well, “Half of all black 12^th graders function on a 6^th grade level.  Half of all murderers and murdered people are black.  Could it be that a large number of them grow up without a father figure to teach them how to relate to authority and the meaning of personal responsibility?”

The only outreach issue that I think needs to be re-visited is George W’s faith-state partnerships.  Government has shown dismal ability to heal lives.  Faith groups are tremendous at this.  And clearly, the R’s need to talk more to minorities like Rand Paul.

My opinion is that Rubio and Cruz are very electable with Cruz best because he will bring out the base and reach Hispanics.  Trump is highly disliked. Bush is dispassionate and disliked somewhat.  Carson is liked but a no-show on issues and no passion. Kasich--I don’t have much data  but I do have his stump speech memorized from the debates.  He started with an $8B deficit and now has a $2B surplus and created 400,000 new jobs.  Just come to Ohio and see what great things he has done.